Half a century ago on high-shool summer job I had a chance to work on the FP1. Recently a nice one have showed up not far from my place and I could not resist the temptation, despite the fact I have three mills already (I am like Oscar Wild; "I can resist everything except temptation...").
After fixing a few things and setting the machine up, the same two difficulties I have encountered 50 years ago, manifested themselves on my machine - hardly surprising as it the same one.
The first is the location of the Z drive handle that comes uncomfortably close to the table when X is all the way to the right. It actually became impossible when I have installed a DRO scale.
The second issue is the difficulty cranking the table up, especially with heavy accessories like the index table and a heavy workpiece.
To save my knuckles I extended the handle with a shaft that fits over the existing keyway. To reduce the wear on tear on the operator and the Z drive, I added a gas spring. I put a 1200N (264 lb force) spring with 350 mm travel. It is bolted with a steel bracket to the knee and the other end rests in a hole drilled in the base. It make lifting the table much easier, though a 1500N spring would be better.
Altogether a simple retrofits, the only bit of a challenge is mating the bracket to the curvature of the knee. I took an impression and matched it using a shaper.
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After fixing a few things and setting the machine up, the same two difficulties I have encountered 50 years ago, manifested themselves on my machine - hardly surprising as it the same one.
The first is the location of the Z drive handle that comes uncomfortably close to the table when X is all the way to the right. It actually became impossible when I have installed a DRO scale.
The second issue is the difficulty cranking the table up, especially with heavy accessories like the index table and a heavy workpiece.
To save my knuckles I extended the handle with a shaft that fits over the existing keyway. To reduce the wear on tear on the operator and the Z drive, I added a gas spring. I put a 1200N (264 lb force) spring with 350 mm travel. It is bolted with a steel bracket to the knee and the other end rests in a hole drilled in the base. It make lifting the table much easier, though a 1500N spring would be better.
Altogether a simple retrofits, the only bit of a challenge is mating the bracket to the curvature of the knee. I took an impression and matched it using a shaper.